September 26, 2010 ~ Foundation of Presence and Ease

Foundation of Presence and Ease
Sunday, September 26, 2010

An ounce of foot strength equals a pound of ease for the rest of you.

My last entry focused on Tensegrity, -the essential vision for understanding posture and movement in the human body. Tensegrity is ultimately determined by how the rubber meets the road, or somatically speaking: where tissue meets ground.

For the majority of us, this relationship is dictated by our feet. The above video is a simple exercise to help cultivate your conscious presence, strength and dexterity in your feet.

I also teach my clients working through Plantar Fasciitis how to do this exercise as a warm up for their feet before that first, most painful and frightening step of the day. If your bladder lets you have a moment before dashing out of bed, warm up your feet and get them ready for that first step with this exercise. It gets the planes of fascia lubricated and moving (watch the video to the right to see this in anatomy) and makes the first step much more pleasant. This helps break the mind-body cycle of tension as well.

If the first step hurts, it initiates a holding pattern of tension which creates undernourished, brittle, sore tissues which feel painful, which initiates tension, which… you see where this is going (pain-spasm-pain cycle). Changing the quality of that first step for the better can break this vicious cycle.

Having strong, capable feet begins to feel as though you have a cushion of comfort and safety supporting you. This allows a massive margin of adjustability within gravity. Having this kind of foundation to rely on allows wiggle room throughout our bodies. The more wiggle room we have to live with, the less likely we will find ourselves stuck in a pain-spasm-pain cycle.

I also recommend this exercise when removing Correct Toes. This accelerates the tissue changes the Correct Toes facilitate by maximizing biofeedback. Correct Toes can increase motor and sensory nervous system presence all by themselves, but will do so much faster when you actively participate in your own motor and sensory nervous system.

See the adhesions that form in fascia when you don’t move below in this video: